I don’t know how you counted down to 2011, but I was counting 1-2-3, pause, 5-6-7. It was a pre-midnight salsa lesson at a small club on the Upper West Side. Maybe I was a just a little bit smoother on my feet than my friend Mary Ellen might’ve reasonably expected. The truth was, this wasn’t my first time.

In general, I’m not a class-taker. Oh sure, through the adult years, the occasional Quark Express training seminar or fire-safety-patrol refresher course is a nice change of pace during the workday. But any sort of week-after-week, gradual advancement of knowledge and/or skills situation is really something I was happy to leave behind at college graduation. But several years ago—and I really don’t recall why—I signed up for lunch-hour salsa classes at my employer’s basement gym.

I’d only taken one previous class at the gym, and that had basically been on a dare. But you know what? I enjoyed that first step-funk class, and happily returned for a second week. And in week #2, I promptly fell down. “That’s embarrassing,” I thought. “I’m on the ground.” And my next thought was, “Huh, that’s odd, I’m having a hard time standing back up again.” Apparently I’d twisted my ankle. As a general avoider of any strenuous activities, this was the first time I’d done anything in the twist, sprain, or break family of setbacks. But I quickly learned about ACE bandages and the importance of rest, ice, compression, and elevation. Also, I stayed home from work the next day and watched The Geisha Boy on TV.

So it was a few years before I once again braved the small, underground, one-mirrored-wall room. My friends Mirtha and Kim were taking the salsa class as well, so that made it easier. Our instructor was a German woman named Simone Assboeck. Now, Germans doing anything of a Latin flavor immediately sets off my Boys From Brazil spider sense. But Simone was kind and funny and patient, so I very quickly felt at ease.

She was an excellent teacher. We soon learned the forward-pause-and-back basic step. (For you ladies, that’s back, pause, and forward.) Week after week, we’d build from there. Side-to-side. Get your hips into it! Now with a partner. Now let’s try it with music. OK, you’ve got that, so let’s add another move. And on and on.

Against all odds, I loved it. It’s still a little hard to explain. But I spend so much time living in my own head, analyzing, and overanalyzing. But when dancing, I had to clear my brain of all that debris, and just focus on the rhythm of the music, the motions of my body, and reacting to the motions of my partner. Counting aloud, then just counting in my head, and soon enough, not needing to count at all. For me, it was a totally different way of thinking, or maybe, of not thinking. I don’t know, but it was so energizing, and I really looked forward to coming back each week. Some people skipped a few classes, some skipped a lot, but we had our regulars. And we became a tight-knit group of new friends. Like Delilah, who worked on a different floor, and turned out to also be a notary public. It was a pleasure to dance with her.

Kim and I would find ourselves at the holiday party, or at a happy hour with music playing, and we were always excited to try out our latest moves. I’m smiling just thinking about it.

All things must pass, said the quiet Beatle, and our salsa season eventually drew to a close. I forget if it was budget cuts, or not enough people coming to class, but Simone left, and the class was done. We talked about staying in touch, emailing each other, getting together at those clubs that have those salsa nights. But you know how these things work. They don’t work. We drifted. Time passed. Kim and I, after a few drinks, might try a few steps, but, wait, you go to the left, or was it….? It fades away. I remember being at a girlfriend’s parent’s house one Christmas, and she sat down at the piano, like she had so often as a kid, except now the old notes didn’t come as easy, and it just filled me with sadness.

A few years ago in San Diego, my friend Chandra asked if I’d come along to a west-coast swing class in a strip mall. Well, sure, why not. Girl, music—count me in. Except, it wasn’t the Spade Cooley western swing I was anticipating. It was modern music (Hall and Oates? or am I misremembering), and a style of dancing different from traditional east-coast jump-jive-and-wail swing dancing. At any rate, I couldn’t quite get it. It wasn’t my salsa.

A year or two before that I found myself at an open house at New York’s Sandra Cameron Dance Center with my friend Jenny. Quick free lessons in a variety of styles. So crowded, so warm. Bad lighting. Wow, Asians really love to dance. Lessons too fast. Wait, I missed that, could you say that again? No? Next lesson. Wait, this is salsa, I should know this, I can do this. I can’t do it, I don’t know it, it’s too fast, it’s different, I can’t, I can’t.

Frustration.

Last fall, after an episode of Boardwalk Empire, I was watching the credits, as I am wont to do. And I saw the name Simone Assboeck scroll by. It is a name you do not soon forget. I rushed to the Facebook, because that’s where all the people are. I found Simone Assboeck, and wrote to her, “Were you….?” She was. I was so proud. Teacher made good.

Every now and again I’ll run into Delilah at work. Sometimes to get something notarized, sometimes not. And I always think back to our dancing days, and I smile, thinking, now there’s a woman who can really cut a rug.